In 2004, he became a senator, and in this position, he has been an outspoken advocate of conservative positions on economic and employment issues, claiming that France's taxes and workforce regulations ruin its entrepreneurs. In November 2012, responding to the Ayrault government's plan to legalise gay marriage, he controversially said, during an interview for France Culture, that authorising gay marriage cause "no more renewal of the population. [...] We'll have a country of homosexuals. And so in ten years there'll be nobody left. It's stupid".[1]